not so subtle attempt to prevent people from complaining about the horrible job she does. The "shes a female" defense ran dry a few years ago, so I guess shes trying the gay thing now. Maybe a few years down the line, it will be ok to criticize gay people for their job performance and not have GLAAD launch a campaign against you. Then what, will she declare she has alzheimers? note: please don't flame me, it's hyperbole. I just think shes a terrible ref who has no place at all in an NBA game.
This is the one thing that I think makes the story interesting -- in an uninteresting way. Usually, the metastories on these things is that gays come out in professions or other contexts where you wouldn't expect gays or people think the environment wouldn't welcome gays. It's a story in sports because of naked men in lockers. It's a story in the Boy Scouts because it's a quasi-religious organization. But this one doesn't do that. What her gayness does here is just reinforce the stereotype that female basketball players are gay. It'd probably be more of a feel-good story if she was straight. What barrier is she breaking by being a lesbian in sports? None. (Disclaimer: Palmer being gay is great and all. Actually, it's neither great nor terrible, it just is, and I don't really care at all. I wish her luck with all that. I'm much more interested in reactions than I am in her gayness.)
All well and good - but I'm not sure that Violet Palmer is going to affect that. Educating the masses is one thing; celebrating every random person with a claim to fame for their lifestyle decisions is another thing. I don't think the latter helps very much. It just reopens the same conversation for the Nth time. Mostly, I dislike Violet Palmer for being a 2000's NBA referee.
Isn't there an organization that fights against the defamation of fat people? Violet needs move to San Antonio.
Ok that was a relief. I got to the "announce" part and I feared she is retiring. Glad she is still going to be one of the zebra guys.
